Agent Practices Ballet During Slow Times

If you peek through the window of one of Linda Raymond’s listings, chances are pretty high that you'll spot her practicing her plies and pirouettes -- if there are no clients in the house.

“I’ve been dancing all my life,” said Linda, “and I still do ballet once a week at the Ballet School of Stamford.” For the past 15 years she’s been studying with Dieter Riesle, a former principal ballet dancer with all the major international companies. “I used to dance more often than just once a week,” Linda says, sighing, “but I’m just too busy these days to fit in more than one class.”

Linda became a real estate agent in 2005 after a 15 year career as director of national health and productivity services at MediFit Corporate Services, a corporate consulting firm. “We did on-site fitness screening for large corporations, such as IBM. One year we screened 15,000 employees in seven months!” Telephone-based smoking cessation and stress management programs as well as a web-based physical activity program were later integrated within IBM's benefits program.

Transitioning into real estate was not that difficult, according to Linda, as both businesses are driven by customer service. “The business skills I learned in my previous career have helped me a lot. I used to design and market fitness programs, and now I design and market house sale programs,” she said.

Between selling real estate and practicing her pas de deux, is there time for anything else? Linda and her husband, Mark Raymond, the associate director of operations at NYU Medical Center in New York, have a nine-year old daughter who keeps Linda en pointe, as it were, and she volunteers with the Mill River River-lab in Fairfield, her home town.

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